Something 4 The Weekend # 108

Zombi: Surface To Air: "Digitalis" [mp3]

I believe I'm showing my age when I tell you that I don't care, and have never really cared, about zombies...And what I mean is that we've got a full-blown zombie "thing" happening out there in CultureDataLand™ right now, especially among Gen Y and whatever the current teenage generation is called, and I'm ambivalent about it...

And when I say there's a full-blown zombie thing happening right now, they (the kids) know exactly what I'm talking about...I'm not exactly sure when it started, but off the top of my head, I'd rattle off films like Shaun Of The Dead, 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, Zach Snyder's well-liked 2004 remake of Dawn Of The Dead, and next month's remake of Day Of The Dead...Ya got the amazing book World War Z (even I loved it) and The Zombie Survival Guide (both by Max Brooks, son of Mel), the recent mashup novel Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (which has already been optioned for a film), and the popularity of such video games as Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Dead Rising, Left 4 Dead, Stubbs The Zombie, and Dead Space...

I'm on the older end of Gen X, and we had the whole vampire thing happening. Some cultural critics have theorized that it had to do with AIDS, and that makes as much sense as any other theory I could toss out...Our generation came of age with such films as Werner Herzog's remake of Nosferatu, Coppola's Dracula (Winona!), Interview With A Vampire, The Lost Boys, Buffy The Vampire Slayer (the movie and the TV series), The Hunger, Vampire Hunter D, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the Blade trilogy...In terms of TV, I could also mention The Night Stalker, The X-Files, and Angel...

Of course, I would argue that Gen X was also the heyday of the whole alien thing, and also serial killer culture, but I won't blather...

No, what I want to say is that it seems pretty apparent that right now the whole zombie thing is gaining serious momentum, and since I believe that on the internet I am an old compared to most I encounter around the tubes, this whole zombie thing is a Gen Y and beyond thing...

Why is that?

Is it a cultural representation of the veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? A response to the walking wounded stumbling off airplanes at American airports, limbs missing and souls stunned...Shell-shocked and leg-locked...

That's my best guess...What you got?

(Like I said, I won't blather.)

Hotcha! Hank